Lovely Getaway

Ok, I think there has been enough distance between my intestines and our little overnighter for me to blog about it without invoking any bad physical memories...

But our little trip up north was just wonderful (fever and sickness aside). We went up to Zippori where our initial intention was to go hiking and then get a massage. We decided to nix the hiking when I clocked in at 101 degrees, but the pampering seemed like a no brainer. It was pretty nice. There was as private jacuzzi and sauna (which Max kept telling me they use in Asia to 'get the flu out' as he put it) followed by a lovely couples massage, through which I shivered the entire time, and then we were fed a really lovely spread for lunch. I love meals where there are 40 plates of little things to try and this was the 40 plate meal of my dreams, but I was too afraid to indulge. Max tells me it was wonderful.

After our day at the spa we checked into a very quaint, very tucked little cottage where I took some drugs and went promptly to sleep. It really was a shame because the cottage was LOVELY. In the morning they left us a little basket of freshly baked bread, freshly churned butter, freshly milked goat's yogurt and cheese and various fruit and salad delectables. 13 hours of sleep had done me good and I was able to enjoy everything save the goat's yogurt...I'm not that brave yet.

(view from our little porch)

On our way back home we stopped at a little artist's village called Zichron Ya'cov where I had made an appointment with some paper making friend's of my bookbinding teacher. I kept it together as best I could and in a few hours we had made our own paper! Fun was had by all and now I have paper that we made with our own two hands.

(The AMAZING Tut Neyar paper mill and store)

Nerd Alert: The Making of Paper
If you have continued past this point I can take no blame for you falling asleep and drooling on the keyboard.   I thought I'd tell a little about making paper!  As our teacher explained, paper making is basically separating the fibers of natural things (trees) or cotton and putting them back together in a different order.  No glues.

He had already stripped the bark off of a Mulberry Tree and soaked it in a water/chemical solution before we got there.  We each took a glob of boiled tree fibers and hit our respective globs with mallets until the fibers were good and separated.  Then we put the fibers in a big vat of water, dipped our screens in, and when we pulled them out of the water we had...soggy paper. Max was really taken with the process (as was I) and whispered to me at one point "It's like a baptism... or a birth".  It was kind of intense.

After the paper is formed, then laid out on felt and pressed to eliminate any excess water, it is slapped onto large boards and left to dry in the sun.

Here are pictures of a real professional.